Genomic Advances on a Grand Scale - New Energy Sources

For more than two decades Dr. J. Craig Venter and his research teams have been pioneers in genomic research. Regarded as one of the leading scientist of the 21st century, J. Craig Venter, PhD will present his work ranging from human genomes, synthetic biology and designer organisms. Dr. Venter will discuss how he is applying tools and techniques developed to sequence the human genomes to discover new genes of microbes from around the world. The dependency on fossil fuels continues to increase as is the desire for products that will produce energy from organic matter. At the same time, the infectious disease markets are demanding products to eliminate disease such as malaria. Through his discoveries, Dr. Venter is developing a complete understanding to create a range of organisms that will educe the worlds dependency on fossils fuels and act as a new class of anti-parasitic drugs.

J. Craig Venter, PhD is Founder, Chairman, and President of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit, research and support organization with more than 500 scientist and staff dedicated to human, microbial, plant and environmental genomic research, the exploration of social and ethical issues in genomics, and seeking alternative energy solutions through genomics. Their most recent achievement is the publication of the first diploid human genome.

Dr. Venter began his formal education after a tour of duty as a Navy Corpsman in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After earning both a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California at San Diego, he was appointed professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. In 1984, he moved to the National Institutes of Health campus where he developed Expressed Sequence Tags or ESTs, a revolutionary new strategy for rapid gene discovery. In 1992 Dr. Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), a not-for-profit research institute, where in 1995 he and his team decoded the genome of the first free-living organism, the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae, using his new whole genome shotgun technique. TIGR, which was recently merged into the JCVI, sequenced more than 50 genomes using Dr. Venter’s techniques.

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